Snow days in auto repair are different than all the rest. They can be one of two different types. Flat out crazy or calm & peaceful allowing you to play catch up on all the other work left over from the previous days. Today, this snow day is the calm and peaceful type. Sort. right now it is 2:55 in the afternoon. I have sent everyone home early to try and avoid the evening rush hour. I bet it is going to be rough since it is coming down outside as rain, snow and ice seemingly all at once. When I'm done with this I will return to the brake overhaul on the 2001 Ford Ranger. I already fixed the oil pressure gauge. It seems the truck went into a local Ford dealer for some transmission work and came out with an unexplained oil pressure gauge failure. Customer complaint/description at the counter was "the needle does not move with the engine running". They were right. The pointer stays at zero all the time. As a matter of fact its below zero which is what really caught my eye. The gauge is not broken; instead the needle jumped around and is coming back up the other side. So now when you start the engine the needle gets pinned against the bottom stop of the gauge. I have actually seen this before. Sometimes the sending units are out of calibration on a vehicle and it pushes the gauge needle past its midpoint over to the other side. The windings of the gauge don't know the difference on their position so they just apply the load to the coil to move the needle. The fix is simple. Take a magnet with the key and engine off, place it on the dash face (use a soft cloth to protect the dash from the magnet) and spin the needle back where it belongs using the magnet to guide it. Just like that kids game when you put the hair and the beard on the pirate with the metal shavings and the magnet. Well, it was a game when I was a kid.
Anyway, its a quiet day and I'm catching up on the work load. Till tomorrow...
In a previous blog, “A Runners Wife” I spoke about my husband training for the NYC marathon. All I have to say is that the months of training all came together of an amazing race. Race day is a grueling day for runners, and the family. But a miracle happened...
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the senate judiciary committee and basically shrugged when asked if any other enemy combatant captured overseas had ever been brought to civilian criminal court to face justice. Talk about an incompetent boob, not to mention a disgrace.
Here is a list of wines all from Spain, and menus from restaurants in Brooklyn where a crew of us did a food / wine crawl through Carrol Gardens and Williamsburg recently
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